The Place With No Name

HIKING HOME                FAMILY PAGES

The Library With No Name - Total Body Massage
please read the disclaimer on the library's main page, and the fine print, before continuing.

THE HISTORY OF TBM


Human Touch TBM is a synthesis of many massage philosophies.  Massage is one of humanity's oldest known medicines, dating back to at least 3000 BC, when it was described in Chinese literature.  The basis of TBM is An Mo, a Chinese term literally meaning, “Press Rub”, but TBM draws on many different philosophies of massage, some of which are outlined below.

The Hawaiian Massage, Lomi Ka'Ala Hoku, means "Massage Journey to the Stars". Long ago Lomi Ka' Ala Hoku was the sacred transformational bodywork reserved solely for Hawaiian Royalty. Immediately after birth, to welcome the child to their new life and family, the Royal infant was taken to the tidal pools and Lomied while floating in the warm water. The original Lomi ceremonies were performed exclusively by the Kahunas, Hawaii's spiritual priests and priestesses. Many of these Lomi sessions included up to twenty healers and lasted for several days at a time. Traditionally, Lomi was performed whenever one experienced a major life-cycle transition such as birth, passing into adolescence, before marriage, entering or changing a life profession, and the death of a loved one.  Lomi is a prayerful, loving, nurturing, total-body massage, a rite of passage, and a ritual for shamanic initiation and training. Lomi provides spiritual and physical healing, and expands the Body, Mind, and Spirit connections. Lomi sessions were used to nurture the individual throughout life until transformation.

The idea that touch can heal is an old one. The first written records of massage date back 3,000 years to China. The word massage comes from an Arabic word meaning 'stroke'.  A bas-relief on the tomb of Anhj-mahor, a c. 2200 B.C. Egyptian priest, depicts a seated man receiving a vigorous foot rub. Hippocrates, the Greek physician known as the father of modern medicine, was a 4th century B.C. proselytizer for massage. " The physician must be experienced in many things, but most assuredly in rubbing," he wrote. In the Middle Ages, the Church saw manipulation of the body as the work of the devil; many proto-masseuses may have been burned as the stake as witches. In the 20th century also, massage has often been assumed to be a front - not for the devil but for prostitution.

Massage has regained respectability in recent years and now enjoys unprecedented popularity. Some 25 million Americans make 60 million visits to 85,000 practitioners each year. Those numbers don't include employees of the growing number of institutions-including the U.S. Department of Justice-that offer massage in the workplace. Or the children of the 10,000 parents who learn baby massage each year. Massage is being used to boost athletic performance, reduce agitation in Alzheimer's patients and relieve stress at disaster sites. After the Oklahoma City bombing, volunteer therapists gave massages to exhausted rescue workers, numbed survivors and overworked pathologists. The state medical examiner observed that the massage therapists were accomplishing more in 15 minutes that psychologists could in an hour or two.

Massage therapy ranks third among the most frequently used forms of alternative health care.- The New England Journal of Medicine 1/93. At least 75% of all disease and illness has a direct link to the stress and tension on the nervous system.

Massage is considered to be among the oldest of all treatment forms used by people. Reference to massage can be found in 15,000-year-old cave paintings in the Pyrenees and 2,000-year-old Chinese medical texts. Even Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, spoke of the effectiveness of massage.

COMMENTS, PROBLEMS, SUGGESTIONS, AND INSULTS SHOULD BE SENT TO


THIS WEBSITE, AND ALL CONTENT, IS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT.
PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

This website is designed to be viewed at a resolution of 800 x 600, or higher, using Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Failure to use these settings may cause in inconsistent results.